New York Habit
by litfratbrat
Summary: Set during Season Two, the diner is robbed. Jess saves the day. It's a New York habbit, really. Assume that Lane works at the dinner during season two. Rated M for cursing just to be safe.


Summary: During Season Two, the Diner is robbed. Jess saves the day. It's a New York habit, really. Assume that Lane works at the dinner during season two.

New York Habit

Lane stumbled to hand over the money to the gunmen. Her hand fumbled with a twenty and he shouted at her to hurry. Jess came down the stairs and froze.

"Hurry up, you stupid bitch," The man, a white guy around thirty five, ordered. Jess surveyed the scene expertly.

The people at the two filled tables had their hands raised, and were rooted to the spot. He knew Luke had run off to Doose's to pick up some kind of fruit, and the man had a gun. Lane tried to stuff some of the bills into a take out bag. The man cocked the gun threateningly.

Lorelai and Luke entered, and Jess praised the lord that the bell had been broken last week. The man would take notice soon; he just hoped Lane wouldn't look over at them. First, he made eye contact with Luke, whose eyes were wide and had a hand clamped over Lorelai's mouth.

"Go," Jess muttered, gesturing to the door. Luke shook his head silently. Jess mentally cursed. They were lucky the gunmen hadn't noticed them come in, he would definitely notice them leave. Time for a distraction.

"Hey," Jess called out suddenly. The man fired instinctually at Jess, missing him. Jess didn't even blink.

"Shut the hell up, this is a robbery," The man snarled, still aiming the gun at him.

"Oh, between your ski mask and the gun, I really couldn't tell," Jess commented. He saw Luke's eyes get impossibly wider. "I'd appreciate it if you stopped threatening my friend over there," He said with a jerk of his head towards Lane. "Her names Jaime Finn, this is her first job."

He tried to personalize this for the man to make it less likely that he would hurt her.

"I'm touched, really," The man snarled sarcastically.

"She'll give you the money. Just relax." Jess said.

"Relax? Fuck you, man." The man said. Kirk sneezed, and the man jumped. He fired into the ceiling before seizing Lane, who squeaked, and bodily hauled her over the counter, knocking over a ketchup bottle and a napkin box, which crashed to the floor.

"Hey, take it easy," Jess soothed. He gave a nearly imperceptible jerk of the head, directing Luke to get out of the way of the door. Luke silently edged to the left of the door, toward Miss Patty's table.

"Take it easy!" The man suddenly shot Jess in the shoulder. Jess's body bent into the impact, and he mentally did the cross arm flag salute thing. Ok, so was his right shoulder not the left. He wasn't in immediate danger of nicking an artery. He kept on his feet.

Acting 101 time.

Jess's eyes widened, and he let out a fake belated scream, before stumbling pathetically a few feet towards the man The man took a half step back, Lane clutched to his chest with his arm rapped around her neck. He had the gun loosely aimed at Jess still. He wasn't left handed but he only had one shot at this.

Luke watched in surprise and horror as Jess's left hand shot out and grabbed the mans gun, twisting the arm in such a quick motion that when the man fired the gun, it went into the ceiling. The man released Lane, who ran to hide behind Luke.

With his now free left hand he reached into his back pocket and pulled a good sized knife from it, and stabbed Jess in the gut with it.

Jess jerked sharply, and the man's hand left the knife safely in Jess's abdomen. Then, Jess gripped the gun tightly and removed it from the man's hand sharply, and in the same motion smacked the man across the face with it. It appeared to hit the man's head hard enough that he was safely knocked out.

"Well, that was stupid," Jess commented, blood dripping from his mouth, before he collapsed knee-first to the ground. Before he lost consciousness he attempted to remove the knife, but failed.

A rush of motion swept by him, but he couldn't focus on any of it. Someone shouted, and before him Luke seemed to be tying the gunmen up with what appeared to be a phone cord. _Good show, Luke_ Jess thought. At least Lane wasn't dead or kidnapped. With the exception of himself, no one appeared to be hurt too badly. Just another day in the life of Jess Mariano, who used to be able to talk down any robber in New York.

Sirens rang out, and a female voice- Lorelai's?- seemed to be trying to sooth him. In Manhattan he could have talked down the robber. But anyone stupid- or crazy- enough to rob a dinner in some Connecticut town in broad daylight was beyond help. Most of the time in New York, it was some guy desperately out of luck, and money. Or maybe a drug addict who needed a fix. Neither of which were truly willing to hurt innocent people.

But trust trouble to follow him. He had lost consciousness and was sort of floating, like when your half asleep. The whole thing just seemed so stupid, he thought, especially when he woke up to Luke's very pale, very concerned face peering up at him.

"Morning Uncle Luke," he managed to chirp threw an extremely gravelly voice.

"It's not morning," Luke said, before sitting back and rubbing a hand over his face. He was in a plastic chair, and they were in a hospital.

"Than when is it?" He asked, trying to garner how long he'd been out.

"Tuesday afternoon," Luke informed Jess. "You've been out for three days."

"Really? Wow, time flies where your unconscious,'' Jess quipped, closing his eyes. They must have him on morphine, he didn't feel anything.

"Why the hell did you do that?" Luke asked finally in a tired voice.

"You saw that guy, he was ready to snap, he was totally going to shoot Lane behind the counter." Jess said incredulously.

"He could have shot you, too. Hell, he did shoot you!" Luke pointed out.

"So?" Jess asked, and regretted his words, as the pale pallor that Luke had previously had suddenly flushed with color again.

"What do you mean, 'so'?" Luke demanded, frowning.

"Well, Lane's got a family and friends and a future and she's just a young girl, you know? And what have I got to loose?" That sounded so much worse out loud than it had in his head. Everything always comes out wrong.

"So you think your life is worthless? Is that it?" Luke asked in surprise and anger.

"Well, yeah! At the very least my life's got less worth than Lane's, admit it." Jess said triumphantly. Luke just looked more tired.

"I can't believe we're discussing this." Luke muttered.

"Think about it, Uncle Luke," Jess said reasonably. "My mothers kicked me out, my father had cut and run before I was even a week old, I've got no friends, I'm failing high school. I don't have a future. Lane does. You do, Luke, and so does Lorelai, and Miss Patty, and Kirk, and Babette, and Taylor, and Jackson, and Sookie, and the rest of the people in the diner that day! If I died, at least they'd be alive. I wouldn't be some great loss to the world."

"How can you say that!" Luke demanded. "Why don't you have any sense of self worth? How can you just stand in front of a bullet and take it without even blinking, without even considering the consequences."

"Luke.." Jess said in exasperation. "I guess it's just a New York habit."

Jess shifted uncomfortably under the look Luke gave him at that moment. It made him feel the same way he had when his 6th grade English teacher had finished reading his book report.

It was such a frank and close examination of him, because people had taken to getting a rough sketch of him - not very tall, messy hair, bad kid- and then never really though of him again, dismissing him as such, and in these few rare moments that people actually _saw_ him, it made him want to piss himself.

"We're going to have to work on that 'New York habit' of yours, kid," Luke gruffly said, finally breaking the thick silence between them. Jess had never heard anything sweeter.

End

R&R


End file.
